old friends, new friends

(from 4/28/10)
one of the nice things about getting back from vacation on saturday afternoon is that we had time (and felt under control enough) to go up to sf on sunday morning to visit friends who were in town for a wedding.

the friends we were visiting were tara, phill and their son max. tara and i go way back - we were roommates our freshman year at ut and have been friends ever since (and know way too many fun stories about each other). after our first few years in college, we started crossing paths in the most interesting places - serendipity at it's finest.

when i worked for motorola in toulouse france the summer between my junior and senior year in college, it just so happened that tara was spending that entire school year and summer studying in toulouse. it was wonderful on the first night in my apartment there, i heard a knock on the door and there stood tara with boyfriend phil and friend stu, ready to take me out and show me part of the city and more importantly the local bar. that weekend, despite my ridiculous lack of supplies and lack of knowledge that you have to carry your own toilet paper to some places in france, i hopped into the car they rented and went camping on the coast. we had great fun that summer while we overlapped at local spots in toulouse, a trip to andora, etc., and i'll always be greatful to them for showing me around and giving me friendly faces while i got my bearings in a new city.

i can't remember the order of our next rendezvous points, but they included austin for tara and phill's wedding and a visit from tara and phill in san francisco, where i got to play a bit of tour guide and show them some cool local spots. after that, we met again in london and a weekend in oxford while i was on a project in london and they were studying at oxford. we didn't have the luck of overlapping in boston (where they live now), but maybe that will be the next destination for catching up...

though this latest visit in san francisco was short, it didn't seem to matter as we have known each other for so long, that we stepped right back into everyday conversation. this is the first time greta and max have met and they hit it off right away. it helped that we met in a park in san francisco, and the kids were all about exploring all the fun stuff as the parents took chances to catch up. they were even lucky enough to catch 4 rides on the carousel with the dads.

we ate lunch outside at the ferry building at what used to be taylor's automatic refresher (they changed their name and i can't recall what it is - not so good marketing i suppose) and we all enjoyed burgers, hot dogs, onion rings, fries and watching the people zip lining across the street in justin herman plaza. we parted ways after a leisurely lunch so the kids could get their naps in. it was a beautiful day in the city with some great old friends.

fabulous vacation!

(from 4/28/10)

the major event in april for us was a 10 day trip to arizona to visit evan's family. normally, evan's parents rent a house down in florida for the month of april and we've visited them there for the past several years. given that we have a young infant this year, we were very happy they tried out arizona this year because traveling with an active 3 year old and young baby cross country on flights that were not non-stop was a non-starter for us. arizona, however, was a nice 2 hour flight to the same timezone, which made it very appealing.

we joined evan's parents and his brother's family, eric, anne, hannah and riley on a wednesday. eric and family left the following tuesday and we stayed through the following saturday. we had a great set up in scottsdale in a house on a beautiful golf coarse with a pool and hottub in the back. the best way to go through the vacation fun is through a pictoral description...

graham & poppy

at the butterfly exhibit

racing

boating with hannah

jumping

movie time with hannah and riley

a little golfing

mimi, poppy and the granddaughters

train ride at the park

and greta's favorite - the carousel

graham and i hanging out at dinner

mimi, poppy, graham & greta

the family portrait

smiley graham

and of course, fun in the pool!

spring storm

(from 3/15/10)
now that we are able to get to tahoe on the weekend, we plan to take advantage as much as possible over the next month. that included going up this past weekend. we had heard all week that there was possibility of rain on friday in the bay area (which almost always translates into snow in the mountains), but the forecasters didn't make much of a mention or big deal about it - until friday.

needless to say, we had not planned on a big storm when we decided when we would leave to drive up, and we got caught. thankfully, everything worked out in that we didn't leave until late afternoon, we had dinner in auburn (after a bit of a fiasco leaving a restaurant when the 20 minute wait time turned into an hour - not good with two kiddos) and started the mountain climb after that. we hit what we thought was chain control traffic not too long after setting out and decided to exit and head in a back way.

what we found at the exit was that they had shut down the freeway and didn't know when it would reopen. we headed off the crowded exit and scrambled to figure out plan b (sleeping in the car and/or waiting it out did not make the list). we found a dog friendly motel along the back route and headed there. after a reasonable night's sleep considering the circumstances, we left for tahoe early the next morning.

the good news is that we were able to head out early enough (thanks to young children waking up early no matter the circumstances), that we made it to the feige (our rental in tahoe) just in time for evan to throw on ski clothes and catch the 8:45 shuttle to the mountain. he was on the slopes just after the lifts opened at 9am and got a great morning of skiing. i dropped greta off later in the morning to join him for a few runs and she did pretty well on the groomed trails even with all the new snow.

all in all a great weekend trip up to tahoe. it's nice for me even though i don't get to ski as much because there's never a to do list when your up there aside from get to the mountain, eat, sleep, relax and have fun.

return to tahoe!

(from 3/6/10 - which has been sitting in my draft folder for 2 years...  clearly, i am trying to catch up)

finally, we were all healthy, big enough, etc. to make our triumphant return to tahoe. my parents were still in town (they left to go back to austin this morning), so we had two carloads to travel up. my mom and i took the kids up after lunch and my dad and evan headed up after dinner (and post traffic).

both kids did great on the ride up and we arrived just before dinner. evan and my dad made great time after dinner and arrived at 11pm. given this was our first trip up with all of us since thanksgiving weekend, we were a bit off our game, but thankfully, the jolly's were there and helped us along all weekend.

saturday morning, we started our routine. it was almost like a splurge weekend since my parents were there. my dad skied both days and my mom skipped skiing this year, so she volunteered to stay at the house with graham so i could go up to the mountain and get a little bit of skiing in. saturday, i skied with greta and got a couple runs in with my dad before returning to the house for greta's nap. i even returned to the mountain while greta slept to get a couple runs in with evan - what a treat to ski together without having to keep to the bunny hill. sunday, i joined greta in the morning and skied with my dad after lunch since evan volunteered to take greta back. it was a great couple days for me and i made the most of it knowing that most of the rest of the season i will be hanging back at the house with graham and carson (not bad with a cup of hot cocoa).

greta, who got one weekend under her belt with evan in january, hit the slopes like a pro. she is using a ski leash (although she is sure she can do it herself), and even over the two days this weekend, got better. we are working on posture and focus, but she loves skiing, riding the chairlift and like last year, still wants to go "really fast". we even ventured on her first blue run both days and she did pretty well. mind you, she's just starting to experiment with direction and turning, but overall she did really well, and most importantly, had a great time.

saturday afternoon the kids burned off excess energy by playing in the snow fort (complete with slide) that andy had dug out the day before. they had great fun and really got going when my mom joined (the magic of grandma's) and there was a snowball fight. there was one incident toward the end when greta got a large snowball in the face at point blank range, but we got over that pretty quickly.

we only hit a few traffic slow downs coming home on sunday. we stopped in sacramento for dinner and made it home around 10pm. all went according to plan with the exception of greta staying awake the entire time and talking the whole way home. at least she slept well when she got here. graham did great for his first weekend trip. he's not a fan of traffic and prefers when the car is moving, but was great and easy the whole weekend. we are looking forward to the spring skiing season!

to the doctor's

in our quest to have a bit more normal and a bit less drama in our lives, we've hit some road bumps. all seemingly minor in the grand scheme of things, but road bumps nonetheless.

so the first ongoing saga since we've had graham home has been carson. he's had some doggy gland issues, which unfortunately, hasn't cleared up with antibiotics and now requires surgery. next in the line of bumps was a little cold that greta picked up. normally, this cold wouldn't have even made it on the map of illnesses because it was so minor, but alas, it became the little cold that graham is now working on getting through. given that he is just 2 weeks past his due date, he has very limited capacity to fight off a cold, so our well children visit to the doctor's office last week turned into a sick kiddo visit for graham.

fortunately, after a few doctor's visits and a week and a half, graham is seemingly on the road to recovery, which hopefully means we can get back to the "regular" routine. continuing the good news, greta had a great 3 year visit at the doctor's office. she passed the "tests" they gave her for hearing and was such a big girl (and a bit of a showoff) for the nurses and doctor taking the weight (35 lbs) and height (35 inches). she even hopped on one foot when the doctor asked her to hop, prompting the doctor to use the descriptors of "advanced" and "athletic" since many kids can't do that until the 4 year visit. the doctor also noted that greta's eagerness to please bodes well for her eventual success in school since much of the culture of education rides on that type of incentive.

while we weren't able to make our triumphant return to tahoe last weekend due to illness, we are still hopeful that it will be in our very near future. meanwhile, i can't believe it's already march. evan's parents have gone back to vermont and my parents arrived for their visit last week. both greta and graham are getting good grandparent spoiling time in.

the birthday post

february 15th had special significance this year. not only is it greta's birthday, but it was also graham's due date, which means on that day, greta turned three and we were able to "start the clock" with graham. all the milestones that a baby hits are based off of their due date, not when they were actually born, so we are finally, thankfully into positive territory with graham and ready to start counting those weeks until milestones hit (sleeping longer stretches at night and returning smiles are around 6 weeks!!!).

while graham's big milestone came & went without much notice or fanfare, greta's was celebrated in style. she's managed to have three separate celebrations so far. her actual birthday fell on president's day this year, so it was a holiday for evan and no camp for greta. we had fun celebrating with just the family that day... greta and i made and decorated cupcakes to take into camp the next day and she went to the park with evan and met graham and i out for dinner (his first outing under the protection of his blanket cloaked car seat). we had a few presents to open and a cupcake with a candle to blow out.

the next day, greta celebrated at camp with cupcakes we had made for her friends there, and the following sunday was the big soiree. given all that was going on this winter and graham still not being ready for exposure to lots of people, we decided to have greta's party at a place called my gym in town. we arrived a few minutes early and met the two teachers that ran the party - joey & dwight. they were very energetic and great with the kids. the party went off without a hitch and all the kids (and i think the adults) had a great time. they ran around,

played games, danced,

did a zip line,

played in the ball pit,

had a birthday parade for greta, sang songs,

and ate pizza and cake.

what more could 3 year olds want? it was a really great party and we were lucky that evan's parents were in town since mark volunteered to stay home with graham so both evan and i could go to the party.

one more potential celebration up in tahoe house for our february birthdays: greta, evan and avis!

the all in one

once again, i find myself in catch up mode, although this time with very good reason. a few days after writing (although not posting) my last entry we had a very unexpected surprise. so here i find myself writing the "all in one" post which will include birth announcement, holiday wishes, recap of december and january and the homecoming.

our surprise came to us early morning on december 5th, when our son decided to join the outside world over 10 weeks early. needless to say, not how we had planned to spend the weekend or the holidays, but we rolled with the punches.

we were watching a movie friday night and around 9:30 i couldn't get comfortable, so i decided to head to bed early to see if laying down helped. around 1am, i knew something was certainly not right since i was still uncomfortable and it seemed to be coming in waves every 5 or so minutes. we called the doctor, tried her suggestion and after that failed to work, woke up greta and headed to the hospital (we didn't have a 29 week, middle of the night contingency plan set up for greta). when we arrived at the hospital, greta wasn't allowed in because of special visiting rules outlawing kids during flu season, so evan waited at the entrance with her while i got checked out. i was 4 cm at that point and the doctor admitted me to try and slow things down. evan drove greta back to the house and dropped her off with one of our wonderful neighbors and headed back to the hospital (45 minutes away).

they were able to slow down the contractions for a little while, but they picked up steam again and when the doctor checked on my, i was 7cm and not showing any signs of slowing down again. since he was breach still, the doctor prepped the OR for a c-section. after a quick call to evan (who was still 30 minutes away from the hospital) and one to my mom to give her a quick heads up, i was wheeled into the OR about 10 minutes later. the doctors and nurses were wonderful in terms of prepping me as to what would happen. our boy was pulled out at 5:55am saturday december 5th, and to my great relief, let out a lusty cry (one of the primary things they are concerned with at this point was developed lungs). the team of neonatologist doctors and nurses (i think there were about 6 of them) grabbed him and got him ready to go to the nicu. the only time i got to see him (from a distance) was as a vague bundle of blankets being wheeled out of the room. evan arrived into the room not too long later while they finished putting me back together.

the rest of the day was a bit of a blur... getting to my room, being wheeled over to the nicu, seeing our boy with a cpap over his nose and mouth to make sure he was getting sufficient air (fortunately, he did not need oxygen and only had the cpap on for a day), and my mom scrambling for flights to arrive that evening. i was in the hospital until wednesday and all in all, had a really great and quick recovery. while i was there, i got to visit the nicu several times a day, get good holding/cuddle time and had time to contemplate what we would name our son (we didn't have the name nailed down at 29 weeks either). finally we went with a late entry and named him graham r. aronowitz. the middle initial r is an aronowitz tradition for the men's side of naming.

fran and mark had tickets to visit later that week, so they were able to come and visit graham in the hospital and spend some quality time with greta. we celebrated hanukah in fairly low key fashion, and greta was delighted by the nightly candle lighting and presents.

a week and a half after fran and mark departed, my family (dad, brother ross, sister-in-law april, and nephews austin and chase) kept their tickets and came out as planned to celebrate christmas, so the adults got to visit graham and the kids got a wonderful week of playing together and celebrating christmas.

january settled into routine of visiting graham in the hospital and getting all the things ready that we had planned to do later in the month. graham was released and allowed to come home on the 15th of january, a day shy of 6 weeks after he was born and just over 4 weeks shy of his due date. he spent 1 week in the nicu and 5 weeks in the level 2 intermediate intensive care nursery. i can't say enough about the wonderful doctors, nurses and staff at lucile packard children's hospital. they made this journey as smooth and easy as it could possibly be, and it was so reassuring to know that graham was in such loving, capable hands when we weren't able to be there with him.

my mom returned home a week after graham came home after having stayed and helped out for 7 weeks. we are incredibly grateful for the help and support she and all our other family and friends, near and far, provided to us.

now, we adjust to a more normal newborn routine, and we are loving it! we hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and a great start to the new year!